Tag Archive: anti-piracy


Copyright Troll Causes Chaos By Suing Fans Without Band’s Permission

Filed Under: Interweb Newz, Peer2Peer News by enigmax — Leave a comment
April 29, 2012

As reported here on Friday, a lawsuit filed April 20th in the US District Court For The Middle District of Florida is targeting fans of American metal band All Shall Perish.

Up to a point it’s a familiar story. A total of 80 IP addresses are listed having been harvested from a BitTorrent swarm sharing the album “This Is Where It Ends”. The plaintiff, a company called World Digital Rights, wants to discover the real-life identities of the alleged file-sharers so they can be hauled into court or, as is almost guaranteed, settled with for a few thousand dollars instead.

After the news broke, predictably the band started to receive negative feedback. But according to All Shall Perish’s manager, Ryan Downey, neither he nor the band know anything about the legal action.

“The band wasn’t consulted whatsoever and none of us have ever heard of this company,” Downey told TorrentFreak. “I spoke to the US label manager and German label president who both are as confused as we are. We are digging deeper and looking into the legality of it all. We are thinking it’s perhaps a sublicensor or some digital aggregator or something?!”

In reality the answer seems more straightforward. All Shall Perish’s German label are Nuclear Blast who according to their site are “the largest independent heavy metal label in the world.” Even if Nuclear Blast’s president is confused by the lawsuit, people working for him are definitely fully in the picture.

According to the lawsuit, on March 12, 2012, Nuclear Blast signed over the rights to “This Is Where It Ends” to World Digital Rights, Inc., an act that made the Panama-based company the “exclusive licensee” of the album. Along with that came the right to sue and it seems the company are now making the most of that right. After conducting another search of court documents today, it appears that World Digital Rights actually filed two lawsuits against alleged sharers of the album, one against 80 Does and another against a further 100.

In both cases World Digital Rights demands that each defendant is held “jointly and severally liable for the direct infringement of each other defendant” and held liable for statutory damages of $150,000.

Downey, who told us that the band were totally blindsided by the revelations, describes this action against fans as “awful” and has promised to stay in touch with developments. Ideally these lawsuits will get withdrawn, not only for the sake of the Does but for the sake of the band. But if Nuclear Blast and World Digital Rights persist with this ridiculous project, All Shall Perish might have no choice but to personally intervene – their reputation could rely on it.

Source: Copyright Troll Causes Chaos By Suing Fans Without Band’s Permission

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Movie Spy Cameras Attack The Dying Art of Camcorder Piracy

Filed Under: Interweb Newz, Peer2Peer News by enigmax — Leave a comment
April 26, 2012

During the last decade the issue of so-calling ‘camming’ – taking a video recording device into a theater and filming the screen – grew out to the point where almost every major movie was online before its official release. Groups like maVen turned the act into an art form, turning out the latest movies in record time and with unprecedented quality.

In more recent times, however, the trend has been showing signs of reversal. These days cammed movies only make up less than 5% of the top 100 most downloaded movies and at this week’s CinemaCon 2012 convention, MPAA chief Chris Dodd said that instances of camcorder recordings had dropped by some 50% since 2007. “Almost all of this is due to your vigilance,” he told the NATO audience.

In several speeches since he took on the role of MPAA chief, Dodd has stressed that the absolute best way to watch movies is “in theaters, in the dark, on the big screen,” and millions of movie-goers agree with him. Unfortunately some of NATO’s MPAA-mandated approaches to combating camcorder piracy have sullied that experience.

Bag searches, pat downs, metal detectors, cell-phone confiscations, and even night vision goggles, have turned movie screenings (particularly early ones) into an experience more akin to that of a post 9/11 airport check-in than a relaxing evening out. But according to a presentation that took place yesterday at CinemaCon, all this has the potential to become a thing of the past.

PirateEye was developed with funding from Motion Picture Laboratories, Inc. (MovieLabs), a non-profit research organization funded by the major Hollywood studios. In development since 2006 and in new hands since 2010, $5m is said to have been invested in the technology to date.

The system involves the installation of cameras in theaters that scan the audience and have the ability to detect the lenses of camcorders and cellphones. PirateEye also records what it sees and retains “forensic quality” evidence for prosecutions.

Pirate Eye

While perhaps the natural reaction is to be concerned about yet more invasions of privacy in the name of protecting Hollywood, the people behind the technology say it is no more intrusive than other CCTV systems people encounter on a daily basis. They even say it could lead people to feel more comfortable.

“The purpose of PirateEye is to not have another person look at you suspiciously if you haven’t done anything wrong,” said Brian Dunn, chief executive officer of PirateEye. “If the cameras don’t catch a person trying to tape a film illegally, the images are destroyed.”

But it seems that PirateEye has more uses than simply cracking down on movie piracy. Earlier this week CinemaCon managing director Mitch Neuhauser revealed that someone had been detected at the convention not for partaking in movie piracy per se, but for recording Paramount’s presentation to exhibitors. That individual was apparently arrested and taken away by the police.

Finally, in his speech to the convention, Chris Dodd praised NATO for scheduling sessions on how to engage movier-goers through social networking, but interestingly one of the stated aims of the PirateEye system is to cut down on ways film fans might choose to promote their experiences with each other. In addition to curbing full-film professional piracy, their technology also aims to deter “social piracy” – the casual recording, storage, sharing of movie clips online.

According to its creators, thus far the system has already resulted in more than ten arrests and prosecutions in the U.S. However, thanks to aggressive US legislation, the uncompromising attitudes of theater staff, and the lack of discretion they are encouraged to show to anyone recording any part of a movie, Pirate Eye will suck in professional pirates and innocents alike.

Source: Movie Spy Cameras Attack The Dying Art of Camcorder Piracy

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Court Gives IFPI Permission To Identify Pirate Bay Users

Filed Under: Peer2Peer News by enigmax — Leave a comment
April 23, 2012

tpbEvery single week new lawsuits are filed aimed at discovering the identities of individuals who allegedly share copyright material online without the permission of rightsholders.

Most often these lawsuits are filed by porn companies, independent movie studios such as the one behind The Hurt Locker, and more recently book publishers such as Wiley. In almost all cases the aim is to identify users and get them to settle out of court, a strategy dumped by the major labels of the RIAA several years ago.

Now, however, there has been an interesting development in northern Europe. The case involves an album from a very young artist called Robin Packalen, a child sensation who appears to be Finland’s answer to Justin Bieber.

On 22nd February 2012, Packalen, who’s signed to Universal Music, released his first album. Unsurprisingly the official street date was beaten by two days thanks to an uploader on The Pirate Bay. This didn’t go unnoticed by his label.

After monitoring the swarm, IFPI and Teosto, the Finnish Composers’ Copyright Society, went to court to obtain the personal details of the individuals behind a total of 82 IP addresses.

IFPI and Teosto convinced the Helsinki District Court that the pre-release leak cost them significant sums of money. The Court subsequently ordered two ISPs, Telia Sonera and Elisa, to provide the names and addresses of the alleged infringers to the rightsholders as requested.

Telia Sonera, to which 34 of the IP addresses relate, said it would comply with the Court and had no further comment. Elisa (30 IP addresses) also indicated it would comply if it could, but it may not have the information being requested.

The news has spooked one individual who contacted TorrentFreak this afternoon. He told us that he was one of the file-sharers in the swarm when the album was released and after seeding for a long time he’s “99% certain” his IP address will have been tracked.

“It happened to be my little sister’s birthday and guess who is her idol? Yep, you guessed right. As I’m such a nice big brother, I decided to download for her Robin’s newest album as a birthday present,” he told us.

“Well, it now seems like that present is turning out to be quite expensive, should they decide to send me a letter asking for money. If they do, I guess I have no other option but to pay. I’m just a poor student that can’t afford an expensive legal adviser to help me out.”

The question now is what IFPI and Teosto (or perhaps Universal directly) will do with the identities once they have obtained them. According to Antti Kotilainen of anti-piracy group TTVK (the outfit that conducted the investigation), the responses will vary.

“Every case will be investigated separately. Consequences will vary from compensation to a criminal investigation,” he said.

But considering the artist in question here – none other than Finland’s Justin Bieber – the chances are that many children will be caught up in the sweep. What will happen to them?

“In those cases, we hope the families will have a serious conversation with their children about piracy,” Kotilainen added.

Jarkko Nordlund, CEO of Universal Music Finland, warned that more albums had been monitored and more action could follow.

“This is a constant fight against piracy. We want to make sure people know there are legal ways to buy music online. We will communicate with the TTVK and see if there are serious infringers that we want to take to court,” Nordlund concluded.

Update: Comment from Joonas Mäkinen, Pirate Party of Finland

Robin’s album has sold more than 80,000 thousand copies, and IFPI and the court handling the case see 82 downloads as notable financial losses? This is ridiculous. He can’t even get to the official top lists in the broken system because the album is low-priced in the first place. Simply the act of just going after these filesharers costs more money and time for the lawyers and courts than could be gained if those downloads were directly converted to physical album sales.

It’s now even in the official PR discourse that the millions of YouTube views of his music video are celebrated as a success. From the perspective of a fan and end-user, it often makes no difference if the musical pieces are available for listening on YouTube, streaming services or as downloaded files. 82 people thought the latter was a more convenient way for them. This is not a good enough reason to allow third party organization get their hands on private information of ISP customers.

Source: Court Gives IFPI Permission To Identify Pirate Bay Users

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Hurt Locker Makers Return to Sue 2,514 BitTorrent Users

Filed Under: Peer2Peer News by Ernesto — Leave a comment
April 23, 2012

hurt lockerAfter being honored with an Oscar for Best Motion Picture in 2010, the makers of The Hurt Locker went on to sue thousands of people who allegedly shared the film online.

Movie studio Voltage Pictures was not only one of the first studios to sue BitTorrent downloaders in the US, it also secured the award for the biggest mass-BitTorrent lawsuit by listing 24,583 alleged infringers at once.

This case dragged on for nearly two years and after collecting an undisclosed number of settlements it was eventually closed last December. It remains unknown how profitable the lawsuit was for the movie studio, but since they haven’t given up on the scheme yet we assume that it wasn’t a financial debacle.

Last week the studio filed a brand new lawsuit in Florida against 2,514 John Doe defendants, who are all accused of downloading The Hurt Locker.

Through this lawsuit the studio wants to obtain a subpoena so they can order ISPs to reveal the identities of the alleged downloaders. These account holders will then receive a settlement offer that generally lies around $3,000, which means that the Hurt Locker makes can receive over 6 million dollars in damages.

While the complaint filed at a federal court in Florida is pretty standard, there are a few details that stand out when we look at the list of sued IP-addresses.

Firstly, all the defendants downloaded the film in 2010. This means that the movie studio has waited two years before filing a lawsuit against the alleged copyright infringers. On top of that, we see that all the 2,514 defendants are subscribers of the same Internet provider, Charter Communications.

It could be that the points above are related. For example, Voltage Pictures may know that Charter keeps IP-address records for more than two years while other ISPs don’t. Another reason for targeting Charter subscribers could be that the movie studio knows that the ISP is not going to object to handing over bulk subscriber details.

Whatever the case, this new lawsuit is worth keeping an eye on.

While The Hurt Locker is a prominent name, this mass-lawsuit is just one of many being filed every week. In total more than 250,000 alleged BitTorrent users have been targeted in the United States and this number continues to increase.

While most of the plaintiffs are adult film studios, more reputable brands such as the major book publisher Wiley & Sons have joined in as well. And last week the first game publisher filed a lawsuit as “Airbus X” makers Aerosoft GmbH targeted 50 downloaders.

Depending on the success of the current cases, the BitTorrent lawsuits may continue for years. Thus far there is no indication that the end is in sight.


IP-addresses of the accused downloaders

Source: Hurt Locker Makers Return to Sue 2,514 BitTorrent Users

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RapidShare Overtures Snubbed, “Must Do Better” Say Labels

Filed Under: Interweb Newz, Peer2Peer News by enigmax — Leave a comment
April 21, 2012

Since the unexpected shutdown of Megaupload in January there has been significant realignment in the cyberlocker market, with many sites changing their business models and some pulling out of the business altogether.

For RapidShare, one of the market leaders, taking either of these actions wasn’t an option. The company has long insisted that it does business legally and has been trying extra hard in recent times to tackle infringement. Its scale means that closing down was never on the cards.

What RapidShare has been doing for some time now is promoting itself as a good digital citizen prepared to go that extra mile. A company appreciative of copyright holders’ needs but one that balances those requirements against subscribers’ rights.

This week RapidShare went even further when it published an anti-piracy manifesto containing guidelines on how responsible cyberlocker and cloud hosting sites should conduct their business going forward.

“RapidShare continues to work with all parties and wants to serve as an industry ‘best practices’ leader in accountability and transparency,” RapidShare CEO Alexandra Zwingli told TorrentFreak.

But while RapidShare’s proposals go far beyond file-hosting services’ responsibilities under the law, the response from rightsholders has been tepid at best.

In a comment to CNET a spokesman for the top four record companies made it clear that although RapidShare’s overtures represent a “commendable step forward”, the company will have to go even further if it is to meet the standards required by the labels.

“Unfortunately the new measures announced fall short if the goal is indeed to meaningfully and effectively reduce the massive amount of copyright theft occurring on [RapidShare's] service,” the unnamed spokesman added.

When comparing these comments and a statement given to us by RapidShare CEO Alexandra Zwingli, there is clearly a mismatch between the RIAA’s assessments and those of the Swiss-based file-hoster.

“Contrary to unverified ‘studies,’ RapidShare believes that by any practical measure, online piracy on its servers is very small,” says Zwingli. “Nevertheless, RapidShare has committed nearly one-third of its staff to policing and responding seven days a week to copyright infringement. DMCA take-down notices are instituted within one hour during regular business hours.”

But despite their efforts on takedowns (1 hour response is very impressive indeed), the RIAA still has issues and it’s interesting where their spokesman draws a line in the sand. The implication is that on one side are sites that provide personal storage lockers where users place their own files for their own use. On the other are sites that allow users to upload files for sharing with anyone online.

“RapidShare allows unlimited distribution of copyrighted files among millions of anonymous strangers without taking adequate steps to prevent this illegal activity,” the labels’ spokesman added.

Perhaps not surprisingly, RapidShare believes the measure of a responsible hosting site lies elsewhere.

“RapidShare fully agrees that the file hosting marketplace provides opportunities for providers and seekers of copyright protected files,” Zwingli told TorrentFreak.

“However, RapidShare believes that a distinction must be made between legitimate companies providing above-board services to users, the vast majority of which are engaged in lawful activity, from illegitimate entities for whom revenue is linked to the purveyance of illegal, copyright infringing activity.

“Unlike other file hosting sites, RapidShare maintains no incentive programs whatsoever, the likes of which reward users for the number of times their files are downloaded. The RIAA and Policymakers need to create distinctions between those companies, such as RapidShare, that are cracking down on abuse and ‘shadow actors’ that tacitly encourage copyright infringement.

“RapidShare welcomes an open dialogue with the RIAA as RapidShare believes they share goals to combat piracy and foster technology,” Zwingli concludes.

Source: RapidShare Overtures Snubbed, “Must Do Better” Say Labels

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